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A place to belong


Learning skills such as sewing, embroidery, lace work and furtniture-making, has helped members of Oxfam Australia's partner Tinhena, in Maputo, Mozambique, to live "positively" with HIV. Photo: Joel Chiziane/OxfamAUS.

A community support group in Mozambique is helping people living with HIV gain a renewed sense of hope and belonging by helping them live more positively, as Editor Maureen Bathgate discovered.

When Antonio Supuleta discovered he had HIV in 2002, his life came crashing down around him. The father of four from Maputo, Mozambique, was fired from his job at a car dealer, his wife left him, his friends abandoned him. He felt alone and isolated.

“It was almost impossible to talk about HIV and AIDS openly,” Antonio says. “It was very difficult. I had no-one. I lost hope.”

Then Antonio started meeting with other HIV positive people at a local voluntary counselling and testing centre in Maputo. They would come together, talk about their fears, their difficulties and problems and offer each other understanding and emotional support.

Out of that weekly support group Tinhena emerged — one of our current Mozambique-based partners. Tinhena supports people living with HIV by providing skills training, income-generating activities, apprenticeships and mentoring programs. The group also conducts HIV awareness and prevention sessions in the wider community and also offers care and support services to children who have been orphaned or left vulnerable by AIDS.

While most of the group’s 256 members are single mothers or widows, there are also 50 male members. With their training in sewing, embroidery, crochet, lace work, beadwork and furniture-making and welding, they make clothing, quilts, aprons, pot holders, school uniforms, beaded jewellery, AIDS ribbons and rattan furniture, which are either sold through local markets and expos or through contracts arranged directly with schools. They work from a new vocational centre which was built last year with our support.


Manuel Naftal, of Maputo, Mozambique proudly shows off the skirt he has sewn using skills learnt through Oxfam Australia partner Tinhena. Manuel joined Tinhena after learning he had HIV in 2004. Photo: Joel Chiziane/OxfamAUS.

“We created this group because it’s like a church, a place where people come to get support — support they can’t get anywhere else,” Tinhena Project Coordinator Zita Muchero says.

“In the negative environment (where people don’t have HIV), there is a lot of stigma and discrimination and people with HIV can’t survive there, so they come here, Tinhena coordinator Felix Guirungo says. “We are trying to give people hope.”

Tinhena member Manuel Naftal, describes his intense feeling of loneliness and isolation when he discovered he was HIV positive in 2004.

“I was looking for a family. I was looking for a friend. Because when I started getting sick, I didn’t have any family and friends that I could talk to,” Manuel says. “But now I have found a new family here at Tinhena. I feel completely free.”

Fellow member Esperenca Matavel explains further: “Here, we all know each others’s status. When we are together, it’s more free, we have no reservations, we are completely open — that’s something you cannot get outside.”

Another member Maria Joao Bila says that learning new skills, working and earning an income through Tinhena has given her life meaning and helped her feel valued.

“The biggest change for me is that I consider that I’m employed now. I have a daily occupation... when there is income, I am paid. That has changed a lot in my life. Given me a purpose.”

The same goes for Antonio. The loneliness and isolation he felt upon learning his status has been replaced by a renewed sense of hope and belonging.

“As a sick person with a lot of problems, when I’m here, I feel better,” Antonio says. “The sewing work helps a lot; because of this project, I’m no longer unemployed. I can work and that makes me feel better.

“Tinhena is everything for me. Tinhena is... my family. My hope. If I leave Tinhena I would die. I would have lost my life. Being part of Tinhena is keeping me alive.